Stormy weather in the North Sea near Egmond aan Zee

As the processes that we are interested in occur below water, deeper than 10 meters, we cannot directly observe them, so we have put measuring devices on the bottom (landers), to characterize the water currents, we took pictures of the sediment, and used boxcorers (devices that take a 'bite' of the sediment) to bring sediment cores on deck for further analysis of their composition and the animals they contain. We also measured the amount and type of particles floating in the water, and much more. 

The exchanges are most intense when water currents are strong such as during storms, so bad weather promises more interesting results. However, we also need calm weather to put our landers on the bottom and to recover them at the end of the cruise.  For this cruise, the weather was our good friend: the sea was perfectly calm at the start and end of the cruise enabling to position and retrieve the landers, while the stormy weather in between gave some marvelous data on sediment resuspension!  Overall we took more than 100 boxcores, and we recorded this work with a camera.

Karline Soetaert

The NIOZ lander (foreground) and the TU Delft lander (background), waiting to be deployed.